Approximately 300 Eurasian and Chinese gold artefacts dating from circa 1500 BCE to 1700 CE from the Mengdiexuan Collection, Hong Kong, will be on view this summer at The Art Museum of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Timed to coincide with the university’s golden anniversary, ‘Radiant Legacy: Ancient Chinese Gold from the Mengdiexuan Collection’ is the first large-scale, art-historical, cross-cultural and technical study of ancient Chinese gold to be exhibited in a Hong Kong museum.

Introduced into China through contact with non-Chinese groups during the late 2nd millennium BCE, gold brought with it not simply a new visual appeal, but completely new artistic, cultural and technological implications in the complex interactions between peoples, regions and cultures. It was used to produce a wide range of luxury goods: personal ornaments for the ruling and social elite, extravagant harness ornaments and other equestrian accoutrements, as well as lavish funerary furnishings to highlight the status of the deceased.